You Reap What you Throw...

I think I am being forced to endure a severe punishment...

I mean...

I do believe that you "reap what you sow" in most instances, and I think the reaping happens most in parenting. At least, for me it does...

My poor mom. I am pretty sure I drove her to temporary insanity. See, there was a time in my teen years where my ability to clean my room was akin to my ability to build a high-tech laser, or pole vault, or something like that. My room was the perfect storm to be tackled by Kim and Aggie...

Now, I know you just read about my bleach fetish and desire to have everything clean and germ-free, but now, I'm coming clean about my dirty, dirrrrrrrrty past...

I was a funky, messy, nasty teen-aged slob. Oh, the horror.

I had a tortoise...it liked to eat rotten bananas, and it pooped. A lot. It never cleaned its cage...I rarely did either...by rarely I mean maybe, MAYBE once a month...

I had newts. They like to shed their skin, and poop. And, they loved to hurl themselves from their bowl and into my shoes. They were desperate to escape their dead skin.

I loved salsa. So I would bring the jars into my room and eat the salsa. The jars would stay. Homework, dead flowers, gym socks, make up, popcorn bags, soda cans, VHS tapes, gum wrappers, clothing tags, magazines and shopping bags...all on top of salsa jars.

My mom is the kind of mom who likes to vacuum the walls; she hated being driven up them by her only child who was a sloppy, sickly mess! My dad told her to just let me be, that I would come around, and eventually clean my room.

Anyone want to hug my mom right now and slap me silly?

So, she learned to live with me by simply keeping my door closed and looking at my baby pictures through her tears, to help her remember how cute and wonderful I once was, compared to the slovenly slob I had become. I managed, though, to not get kicked out of the house by daily vacuuming the living room and dining room floors and taking two hours to empty the dishwasher. Hey, I never broke a dish or cup, they were completely dry by the time they reached the cabinets, and for the most part it kept me out of trouble.

And, to her utter relief, my dad was right, I did eventually come around, and I gave the tortoise and newts away, learned to eat my salsa and soda at the breakfast bar, and do some laundry now and then. And now I am a mom of two, who prefers to have a neat and tidy home, sprayed diligently with bleach. How things have come full circle.

I can barely keep up with my own housework, so, do I have the right to bang my head against a wall when I tell my kids clean their room, only for it to look like this A DAY LATER?? Do I have the right to withhold games, pool time and even treats if this mess isn't cleaned up IMMEDIATELY! I mean, I don't even vacuum my walls! How can I of all people, allow this mess to overwhelm me and make me want to pull my eyelashes out?

Well, it does, and there aren't even any salsa jars...

Sorry mom. I hope my perpetual agony makes you feel better!